4 Questions to Grow a Dynamic Culture

When was the last time you wanted to stay in a job where you weren’t being challenged or using your talents? Where you knew exactly what to expect every day? Where there were no surprises and you knew you would have the same role in five or 10 years that you have today?

That might work for some people. But it doesn’t work for Creative Executives.

Growth is a fundamental part of culture. Why? Culture is how work gets done. And if you have a bunch of zombie-like employees who aren’t challenged and engaged, or who just don’t give a shit, your business isn’t sustainable.

As a Creative Executive, you need to develop and grow in order to make your company develop and grow – to be successful now and in the future.

1. When was the last time you grew at your job?What were the factors at play? Who helped you grow? And how?

2. What were you able to do afterward that you couldn’t do before?
Also consider how were you able to be, see, think, and feel differently.

3. What did this time of growth mean for you in your work and life?

4. What are the conditions that create these types of experiences professionally?

We recommend doing this with a team, so you can hear the variety of answers people share. You might hear things like:

No one was there to do it, so I jumped in and rolled up my sleeves.

We had little resources and a lot of passion, so the team was willing to make it happen, even though we didn’t know how.

My boss trusted me with a project I’d never done before.

I did a project with a team member who had a very different skillset than I did. We helped each other out with our own expertise and learned so much from each other along the way.

The key to this exercise is to look at the varied responses you get and ask this question:
Is your organization creating these types of experiences for you and your teams? And if not, how can you incorporate more of these opportunities into your daily work?

Andy Fleming and his teams have some big goals – to help 1 million businesses become Deliberate Developmental Organizations where EVERYONE is developing EVERYDAY.
I’m inspired by his effort. I hope you are, too.